Emirates Group’s H1 revenue dips by 74% in FY2020-21

November 17, 2020: The Emirates Group announced its half-year results for financial year 2020-21. Group revenue was AED 13.7 billion ($3.7 billion) for the first six months of 2020-21, down 74 percent from AED 53.3 billion ($14.5 billion) during the same period last year. 

The group is reporting a 2020-21 half-year net loss of AED 14.1 billion ($3.8 billion).

The group’s cash position on September 30 stood at AED 20.7 billion ($5.6 billion), compared to AED 25.6 billion ($7.0 billion) as of March 31.

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline and group said, “We began our current financial year amid a global lockdown when air passenger traffic was at a literal standstill. In this unprecedented situation for the aviation and travel industry, the group recorded a half-year loss for the first time in over 30 years.

“As passenger traffic disappeared, Emirates and dnata have been able to rapidly pivot to serve cargo demand and other pockets of opportunity. This has helped us recover our revenues from zero to 26 percent of our position same time last year.

“The Emirates Group’s resilience in the face of current headwinds is testimony to the strength of our business model, and our years of continued investment in skills, technology and infrastructure which are now paying off in terms of cost and operational efficiency. Emirates and dnata have also built strong brands and agile digital capabilities which continue to serve us well, and enabled us to respond adeptly to the accelerated shift of customer and business activities online over the past 6 months.”

Sheikh Ahmed added, “We would like to thank our customers for their continued support, and express our appreciation for the combined stakeholder efforts that have made it possible for Dubai to resume aviation and other economic activity so quickly and safely. No one can predict the future, but we expect a steep recovery in travel demand once a Covid-19 vaccine is available, and we are readying ourselves to serve that rebound. In the meantime, Emirates and dnata remain responsive in deploying resources to serve our customers and meet demand.

During the first six months of 2020-21, Emirates retired three older aircraft from its fleet as part of its long-standing strategy to improve overall efficiency, minimise its emissions footprint, and provide high quality customer experiences.

Emirates gradually restarted scheduled passenger operations on May 21. By September 30, the airline was operating passenger and cargo services to 104 cities.

Emirates carried 1.5 million passengers between 1 April and 30 September 2020, down 95 percent from the same period last year. The volume of cargo uplifted at 0.8 million tonnes has decreased by 35 percent while yield has more than doubled by 106 percent. This reflects the extraordinary market situation for air freight during the global Covid-19 crisis, where drastically reduced passenger flights led to limited available capacity while airfreight demand rose strongly.

Emirates was able to uplift 65 percent of its cargo volumes compared to the same period last year, which shows its cargo division’s outstanding agility in adapting its operations to provide air freight services in this new environment. In a very short time, Emirates SkyCargo completed the partial retrofit of 10 B777-300ER passenger aircraft to transport freight on the main deck, introduced new operation protocols to enable the safe uplift of cargo in passenger cabins and scaled up its global cargo network.

Robust airfreight traffic across markets was a bright spot for dnata’s airport operations which responded nimbly to meet customer demand. Overall loss for dnata is AED 1.5 billion (US$ 396 million), compared to last year’s profit of AED 311 million (US$ 85 million). This figure includes impairment charges of AED 689 million across dnata’s international business divisions, mainly pertaining to goodwill.